


Rick Macy wants to wear skirts

by faekieren



Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: M/M, Nonbinary!Rick Macy, Other, Rickren, Risen, Trans!Rick Macy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-01
Updated: 2015-04-01
Packaged: 2018-03-20 19:16:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3661818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faekieren/pseuds/faekieren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In an AU where the rising never happened and neither of them had died, Rick and Kieren managed to move out of Roarton and get away from Bill. Away from his dad, Rick is able to explore his gender with Kieren.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rick Macy wants to wear skirts

**Author's Note:**

> content warning: this has mentions of some body dysphoria, use of some transphobic/homophobic slurs, implied past abuse, mentions of blood and violence towards the end.  
> I've not properly proofread this so sorry for any mistakes - if there are any absolutely glaring faults tell me so I can edit them

 

 

 

"Ren?" Rick said, reaching out to grab Kieren's arm as he stood up to go and put the kettle on. He let himself be pulled back to lie next to Rick on the bed, allowing himself to become tangled in sheets as he leant forward to press a kiss to Rick's forehead. He hummed out what Rick knew was a "Yeah?".

"I - I, um, found out about this thing the other week. Have you - have you heard of people being nonbinary? Like when you don't feel like a man or a woman ?" Rick said quietly to Kieren, looking to him to try to gage some sort of reaction, wondering whether he should go on.

"Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Why?" Kieren asked, preparing supportive things to say in the back of his mind while waiting for Rick to reply.

"Well, it's been on my mind a lot recently and - and the more I think about it the more it makes sense to me." Rick stopped as if he was second guessing his decision  to tell Kieren about this. "I think I might be \- might  _not _ be a man."

He finished  and kept quiet, waiting for Kieren to say what he would - laugh even. After a moment, when Kieren hadn't responded he was just lifting his head to ask or look when  Kieren leant forward and pulled him into a hug. Rick was still before he hugged back, his arms wrapping too tight and Kieren laughing and pulling away. 

Rick looked at Kieren, still needing reassurance that this was all okay, even though Kieren had hugged him, and had not run away or shouted at him.

"It's okay Rick, it's okay." Kieren gave his best calming, encouraging smile. "Really. You can be whatever gender you are, I still love you."

Rick didn't know what to say - how to thank his wonderful boyfriend for being so supportive, so he just hugged him again, making sure not to squeeze too tight this time.

When Rick pulled away Kieren was smiling and said: 

"You want a coffee? I'm making," before standing up and plodding off, barefoot, to the kitchen, Rick having nodded before smiling to himself when he noted that Kieren was wearing his boxers.

-

Kieren and Rick were cuddled up together on the couch, Kieren snugly curled up between Rick's knees. The sponsoring advert for Corrie was playing and Kieren moved his gaze from the TV as he turned to look at Rick, starting to talk over the meerkat talking about insurance on the screen.

"You know about this nonbinary thing?" Kieren opened with. They hadn't discussed it since the original morning, a few days ago, apart from when Rick had randomly asked if Kieren was sure about it being okay, if he didn't think it was wrong or stupid of him, just for Kieren's original support to be reiterated. When Rick had been out buying milk earlier Kieren had googled about it, wanting to make sure he knew what it really was and if he should be doing anything to help Rick be happy.

"Do you want anything to be different?" Kieren tried to ask it without making Rick feel uncomfortable, "Like, you know, new clothes or a  different name or pronouns?"

"Um, I don't know about changing my name, but, I mean, I've never really thought about different pronouns." Rick didn't really know what to say - he was surprised at the question, Kieren having thought about it more than he had.

"Well, we could look up pronouns, see if there's any you want to try out, yeah?" Kieren said.

"Yeah," Rick smiled and nodded and tilted his head down to kiss Kieren's forehead.

-

The next morning Kieren had woken up and left the bed carefully, making sure not to wake Rick as he slipped from his arms, put on one of Rick's shirts that hung very oversized on his small body, and left the room.

He went to the kitchen and put the kettle on before going and picking up his laptop. Kieren stood by the counter, starting to bring up some of the sources on pronouns and a couple of tabs of clothes shops. He made two coffees and brought them back through to the bedroom with his laptop, putting one on the windowsill near Rick's side of the bed before sitting on the bed with his mug, looking through the tabs and bookmarking the things he thought Rick might like.

After about twenty minutes Rick started to stir and rolled over.

"You waking up yet?" Kieren asked, "I made you a coffee but it'll be cold now."

Rick smiled with his eyes still closed and started to push himself to sit next to Kieren.

"I'll microwave it in a bit. What're you looking at?" he asked, nodding at the laptop.

"I'm looking up pronouns and stuff," Kieren replied, moving the hand he wasn't using to hold on to Rick's.

"Bloody hell, there's a lot of ' em."  Rick said, looking over the long lists of pronouns.

"It's neo-pronouns," Kieren explained, "People didn’t like the pronouns there already were so they started kind on making up their own. D'you think you'd want ones like that?"

"Maybe. I don't know." Rick said. "There anything else? Like, something more -  I don’t know - already in the dictionary? "

"Yeah. Loads of people just use "they" and "them" or stick to binary pronouns like "he" and "she". What d'you think?" Kieren said and looked up from the laptop screen to Rick.

"I think I might do that for now. I like "they" and "them"  's just nice and neutral  to start with. But I'm happy sticking with "he" to be honest. " Rick said, hoping he wasn't being annoying and boring after Kieren had gone to the effort to research new  pronouns for him. He looked at the ones up on the screen, thinking maybe they would be nice in the future when he was more used to, well - everything. He pointed to some on the laptop:  _ xie/xim/xir _ .  "I mean, I like the sound of those, but I don't know about changing everything right now."

"Maybe we can try them out another time?" Kieren had been nodding along, watching Rick talk, and now it was Rick's turn to nod at his suggestion. "But just "he" and "they" for now, yeah?"

"Yeah," Rick said, feeling more comfortable with that.

"How'd'you feel about getting some new  clothes? Some skirts or something?" Kieren asked, not wanting to force too much on Rick at once.

Rick felt his stomach flip slightly at the thought. For a while he had been wondering about wearing dresses and skirts and sometimes even makeup, but just brushed it off as weird. But if Kieren was asking him if he wanted to it must have been okay for him to want to wear "feminine" things.

"Um, yeah. I - I'd like that." Rick replied after a moment. "Just not - not out of the flat, okay?"

"Okay," Kieren said.

They looked about on some of the websites Kieren had got up earlier for a while (Kieren had suggested going out shopping but Rick didn't want to) and when they had ordered a few clothes Kieren had kissed Rick and made him blush, calling him brave.

-

Rick had left Kieren asleep in bed and  was up making cereal  when the door went. He answered and signed for the package, glad he had decided to put pants on when he had gotten up.  He put the box on the coffee table and sat on the sofa, eating his cereal and watching Come Dine with Me before he went to wake Kieren up.

"Ren, Ren." Rick said as he gently shook Kieren's leg from where he was sat on the side of the bed.

"Mmm?" Kieren's head lifted up and his eyes half opened.

"It's come." Rick told him.

"What's come?"  Kieren  asked, confused and rubbing the sleep out of his eye.

"My clothes, " Rick said and  Kieren sat up at that.

"'Gonna try them on then?" Kieren asked and Rick looked nervous. "Go on - I'll go and wait in the other room and you can try them out."

Rick did a little smile for  Kieren  and nodded as Kieren stood up,  put a t-shirt on and walked out. He opened up the box and pulled out the skirt that was at the top and opened  the plastic packaging. It was a black leather looking skater skirt. He realised he would need a shirt and looked through the wardrobe until he ended up deciding to wear it with just a plain white tee.

He had put on the skirt and tee but hadn't gone through to show Kieren yet. Rick had looked in the mirror and been happy at first but started to doubt whether to show Kieren  the outfit and even whether he should be wearing it at all. He felt happy wearing it and he liked how it looked and he was okay with his body and never really felt uncomfortable with it - but he felt ever so slightly wrong wearing the skirt. Rick thought it was okay and was happy with how it looked, but there was an awful niggling voice, one that reminded him of Bill's too much for  comfort, at the back of his mind telling him that he shouldn't be wearing a skirt, that he looked ridiculous wearing a girl's skirt with his big muscly frame.

Rick tried to shake the thoughts away and told himself that he'd ask Kieren what he thought, half forgetting what he was wearing until he had walked into the living room and saw the look on Kieren's face.

Kieren looked up and stilled. The look on his face seemed part surprise, but mostly just pure adoration. Rick decided not to say what he was going to and just smiled at Kieren.

"You like it?" he asked, doing his best to pretend he was confident in what he was wearing. Kieren just nodded as he got up and walked towards Rick, wrapping his arms around him and just kissing him. Rick original qualms settled and he smiled onto Kieren's lips before kissing back.

"Suits you," Kieren told him before quickly kissing Rick again and taking his hand to lead him back to the bedroom.

-

Over the next few weeks Rick wore skirts and dresses around the flat more and more frequently with Kieren's constant reassurance and compliments. He gradually built up the confidence to say yes one of the times when Kieren asked if he wanted to go out wearing a skirt.

Kieren was going out into the city anyway that day to buy a new sketchpad and a few new paints. On the bus Rick sat next to Kieren as usual, but this time he sat small and pressed to his boyfriend's side the whole way there, rather than sitting up and leaning back against the seat and not looking like a child.

Rick had his head down and was just looking at his lap out of nerves, using the hand that wasn’t holding Kieren's to fiddle with the strap of his bag. Kieren had his head resting on Rick's shoulder and quietly thought to himself that it was probably a good thing that Rick didn't look up and notice the staring, judging gazes of the strangers on the bus.

They walked hand in hand for a few minutes from the end of the street where the bus had stopped. Kieren concernedly noted to himself that Rick didn't look particularly happy - more scared, but thought he might make Rick even more nervous if he questioned it and just squeezed his hand slightly.

Rick was trying his best not no focus on how vulnerable he felt in his skirt walking through the city and looked around him as they walked. His eyes fell on the coffee shop a few buildings down from the arts and crafts shop they were on their way to. He looked into the window for a second and caught eye contact with Simon who was  sat at a  table by the window. A s Rick moved his gaze to the pavement in front of him as he looked where he was walking he missed seeing the person in the café look  down into his drink happily.

They were just at the art shop and about to walk in when there was a shout from behind them.

"Oh, Calum, look at this fucking faggot!" A man called out to his friend, laughing at Rick.

Kieren turned around with Rick and froze. Normally Rick would have been brave and laughed it off, shouted something back, or even have thrown a punch. But something inside of him seemed to break and he just stood still, like a deer in t he headlights, looking small and vulnerable, clinging to Kieren's hand as the guy got closer, laughing and calling him names.

By this point Simon had looked back to Rick and seen what was happening and was standing up and leaving the coffee shop.

Kieren didn't know what to do. Rick was completely still and Kieren just kept looking between Rick and the man, panicking and starting to think if he'd be able to take to guy on to defend Rick. 

Rick's mind was in complete shut down, even though his body didn't display it, and he was crumbling inside, finding himself believing he _was_ all of the awful things the stranger was calling him - that voice in the back of his head calling him names too, making the situation feel  awfully,  _painfully,_  familiar to Rick.

"Hey! You got a fucking problem?" Simon shouted at the man as he approached them, making the stranger turn around and look at him, in the process realising his friend was just watching from the other side of the road and deciding to play up even more for him.

"Fuck off, mate! What are you going to do? Put on a frilly skirt and granny pants like him?" The man said loudly, still laughing as he jerked his head back to point at Rick. 

Anger suddenly covered Simon's face and before he knew what he was doing his fist was raised in the air and coming down onto his face with force. The guy staggered back and held his hand to his face, pulling it away and seeing blood before covering his nose with it.

"You got beat up by a fucking pansy, mate," his friend laughed, having crossed over to come and pull him away before making even more of a scene.

The moment that Kieren saw the guy was turning away and wasn't going to hurt them, he turned to Rick and started to calm him down, his breathing having quickened and his body visibly shaking. Kieren used one hand to keep hold of Rick's, his thumb rubbing over the back of hand, and the other to run over his face and through his hair.

"Are you alright?" Kieren asked Rick quietly, getting a small nod, Rick's eyes still staring away in the direction where the man had been when he was coming towards them. Kieren tried again:

"Are you alright?" he asked with no answer, this time Rick' s only response being stillness.

"Rick?!" Kieren asked, louder this time. Rick suddenly snapped out of it and looked to Kieren, his expression worried and his eyes watery, obviously struggling to keep things together, but staying strong so as not to look any worse than he already thought he did.

Kieren just breathed out in relief that Rick had responded and pulled him close into a hug, whispering "you're so brave" and "I love you" quietly into his ear over and over. They didn't notice that Simon had come over to them until Kieren pulled back after a few moments.

"Are you two alright?" Simon asked them. Rick pulled his eyes away from Kieren's and looked at him, almost in disbelief that this wonderful stranger had stood up for him.

"Yeah. Yeah, I think so," Kieren replied when Rick hadn't said anything for a while.

"Do you want to sit down?" Simon asked them, still concerned about Rick even with that man gone and him responding to Kieren, "I can get you coffees, if you'd like?"

"Um - I -  er, yeah." Rick said, "thanks for, well, for punching that guy."

"It's okay," Simon said and started to walk back towards the café but pausing to turn around and saying, "suits you, by the way," nodding to the skirt, making the top of Rick's ears go red as he blushed.


End file.
